This talk reflects on ways of practicing skillfully with mind states and emotions. These sometimes challenging areas of experience are a gateway to deepening clarity and opening the heart, when met in the present moment with understanding, acceptance and kindness.

It is clear that spiritual practice is aimed towards the development of wholesome states. Yet our mind-streams have currents of greed, hatred and delusion - how can we use these very states to our own benefit?

The contemplation of vedana, the Second Foundation of Mindfulness, provides a powerful tool to dismantle suffering; it can also reveal surprising and profoundly liberating truths about the nature of reality.

How to work with self-loathing and doubt. How the Noble truths lead to freedom. How the Buddha guides us on the eight-fold steps on how to live our lives, train our minds and grow in wisdom. The Dhamma is most excellent in the beginning, middle, and end.